Review: New book - Singing from the Floor

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 22 Mar 14 - 07:55 PM

So there was "folk", which meant a set repertoire of songs, mostly involving milkmaids. Then there were "folk songs", which meant songs that ordinary people recognised as their own, whether it be Greensleeves or Auld Lang Syne or You Need Hands. Then there were "folk songs" meaning songs that expressed the radical strivings and yearnings of ordinary people, usually involving union representation. And then there were "folk singers", usually meaning beardless youths singing their diaries.

But that's not all. Then there was progressive rock, which made folk look ridiculous by opening up both musical and lyrical possibilities - strange chords, strange time signatures, strange metaphors, why would you go back to the milkmaids (or the trade unionists, or the singing diaries)? There should have been some common ground with milkmaid-folk - which is as weird as you like in places - but the opportunity was rarely taken. And then there was punk, which made folk look ridiculous all over again by privileging authenticity, spontaneity and anger: there should have been some common ground with both radical-folk and diary-folk, except that punk offered to do everything both of them were doing and do it better (and angrier).

And that's just the story up to about 1979. Folk has been left behind over and over again by the March of Trend - I've often wondered whether what did for Peter Bellamy's career wasn't the success of the Transports but the unpredictable coincidence of that succss coming in the year of punk. And traditional folk has been left behind over and over again by folkies who think their interpretation of folk is better suited to catch the wave. And yet we're still here, and the old songs still sound amazing.

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 12:05 AM

'And yet we're still here, and the old songs still sound amazing.....'

perhaps you have a lower than average threshold of amazement than we do in our house.

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 03:03 AM

Well, you've been in my house, Al; so you know that that is where the threshold is fixed here.

Surely the point about Phil's perceptive post above ("Folk has been left behind over and over again by the March of Trend -") is that Traditional Folk might well be occasionally [or even constantly] eclipsed by other genres; but like Tennyson's 'The Brook', it might (a tad inaccurately) proclaim that "Trends may come, and trends may go; But I go on for ever!".

~M~

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: SunrayFC
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 03:58 AM

Just started the book, thanx to Big Al, who features heavily here!

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 05:01 AM

"I recall thinking that The Watersons weird harmonies..."
Hardly "weird Al" - pretty run of the mill compared to polyphony or some of the part-singing found in general use all over the world - even as far out-flung as some of the church singing in the Hebrides - " way out foreign"
You really should try to get out more - take a break from the 'three-chord-trick' maybe
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 06:00 AM

Somewhere in my vinyl collection I have a 3-disc set of a German group singing polyphonic church music from the 13th century - recorded in a church in West Germany - and the harmonies are absolutely amazing.

I regularly get high on the nine minutes or so of "Spem In Alium" by Thomas Tallis - blows the mind.

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 06:19 AM

I'll second that, Wiil!

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 06:24 AM

Then there was progressive rock, which made folk look ridiculous by opening up both musical and lyrical possibilities - strange chords, strange time signatures, strange metaphors, why would you go back to the milkmaids (or the trade unionists, or the singing diaries)?

Because sitting in the dark for two hours listening to fake surrealism in E minor and watching guys shaking mops of hair in red spotlights was an experience you didn't want to repeat indefinitely?

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 07:26 AM

You want harmonies - try the Genoese dockers singing Tralaleri - there's an entire album devoted to it in the Lomax collection
I remember dropping into Cecil Sharp House one afternoon when we were in the area and chancing on a concert given by the Placa Grandmother's choir from Bulgaria - sends shivers up the spine just thinking about it!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 01:52 PM

went to see a young duo from Bournemouth last night called Ninebarrow with a nice line in harmony. they have an album out soon.

harmony singing isn't really my cup of tea. I prefer more characterful approach to singing.

however i'd heard harmony singing before the Watersons in 1964, but yes I thought they were quite original. I admit I was young at the time, I still think they've something quite unique going on there. I suppose all the great harmony singers from Bach's B minor mass to the Everlys bring their own uniqueness of approach. And the Watersons sound to me is unmistakeable - and quite different.

three chords are enough for me Jim. when I've exhausted that approach - i'll let you know.

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 02:01 PM

The Watersons were special as are The Wilsons, must be something about families.
I saw an intersting duo back in the 80s, Richard Grainger and Dick Miles what happened to them, are they mentioned in the book?

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 02:10 PM

"three chords are enough for me Jim. when I've exhausted that approach"
Good luck Al - never quite managed them - or the concertina - or the flute....
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Mar 14 - 04:17 PM

I come from hoots with jigs and reels
I sound a complete wally
And yodel the hits of Christy Moore
Because it sounds quite jolly

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: GUEST,SteveT
Date: 22 Apr 14 - 03:53 PM

Just listening to the latest (20th April) Mike Harding Folk Show podcast where he plays tracks from, and reminisces about, the times recounted in the J P Bean book. Some wonderful tracks and worth a listen if you enjoy good music and/or nostalgia.

(P.S. I enjoy his show a lot more now he's away from Smooth Operations and the BBC)

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: GUEST,Lea Nicholson
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 09:46 AM

I was amused to read this.

MGMLion and Derek Schofield are correct on this: I won the Male Solo Section of the competition and Derek Brimstone was second. The prize was £5, quite a bit of money then and two of the judges were Jack Taylor, editor of the magazine Ballads and Songs and Dave Moran the editor of another folk magazine whose name escapes me and also a member of the Halliard with Nic Jones.

I was also in one of only three or four tents camping in Cherry Hinton Park.

By the time I left the festival I had been invited to join Jack Taylor's band back in Manchester. Quite good going for a seventeen year old schoolboy, I thought! In retrospect I'm not so sure that this precocity and early success did me a lot of favours :)

A further irony is that I now live in a flat overlooking Cherry Hinton Park.

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 11:31 AM

Hi, Lea Nicholson. Sorry I had forgotten your name. I sang in that competition too {Queen Eleanor's Confession iirc} but came nowhere. I wasn't camping because I lived in Cambridge itself then. Interested you now live there. I'm still out here in Haddenham, halfway to Ely, where I moved 37 years ago. Give us a call some time -- I'm in the Cambridge phone book 2ce, as Myer M Grosvenor, & Grosvenor-Myer M. Maybe you might drop around some time.

≈Michael≈

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 11:55 AM

... and (how about this for a filing system?!) I have just turned up my review of Horsemusic from The Times Educational Supplement of 1 October 1971.

Fortunately, I liked it ... I called your concertina playing"exceptional"!, & said your "send-up of some of the dafter aspcts of the electric folk fad" was "brilliant". Cor!

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Review: New book - Singing from the Floor
From: GUEST,Lea Nicholson
Date: 07 Sep 14 - 03:14 PM

Impressive filing system. Impressive review ;)